8/13/99
-- Well, I'd love to start off by saying how good it feels to
be on the road and all that. Unfortunately, it only felt good
to be on the road again up until yesterday afternoon, when, shortly
after I'd left the Joshua Tree National Park, my car started giving
me grief again. Now I may be stuck in Las Vegas for the weekend,
and I'm not enjoying the idea one bit. To the right you see the
start of the saga, a tow from the Nevada border to Las Vegas.
Well, I guess I'm making the best of it -- I'm here in the waiting room at Williams Auto Service, working on my journal and being hopeful that the guy who works on Saabs can squeeze my car into his schedule today. If he can, I can leave here this evening, which I would dearly like to do. If he can't, I'll have to wait until Monday for any work to get done, which means two things: 1) I'll have to spend the majority of whatever leisure time I might have had for the trip home precisely in the city which I least wanted to see at all, and perhaps most significantly, 2) I won't be able to travel until the 16th at the earliest. This is most unsettling. If I can't travel until the 16th, and have to be in Providence by September 3rd the latest (to register for classes), I'm in for a very rushed ride home, and I might not be able to visit with Josh Ewen in New Orleans or Benjy and Shari Rose (hey! they must be married by now!) in Athens, GA. Which would suck.
Well, let's see what's gone down since I left Joanna and Brent's place. Well, I woke up that morning with Brent and Jo already out to work, which is why I bid them farewell the previous night. I immediately started the bail procedure -- start up the laundry, that being some of my stuff and the sheets I'd been sleeping on for the past 2 weeks, while running out for coffee, grabbing bagels for breakfast (and lunch), and generally cleaning up after myself. I also got online for the last time at thier house, which I've already written about, and uploaded the last update, checked email, etc. When the laundry was ready and my clothes were all packed I did a full-out 10 minute idiot check, followed by a super-double idiot-check-idiot-check. It would simply not do to find out in Arizona that I'd left the power brick for my laptop behind thier couch.
So I said goodbye to Venice, and LA, and the Pacific, and many intangible threads which I could feel attaching me to the coast but not precisely name, and cruised on out of town. I left at 3:30, was in San Diego by 5:20, and had my general delivery parcels by 5:45 from the main San Diego Post Office. I repacked my trunk, consolidated some items, and offloaded a bunch of stuff which I didn't need into the big purple plastic tote and shipped it off to my parents' house. Then I left San Diego and made for the Joshua Tree National Park, which was too far away and too late to see that day, but would make a great first-thing-in-the-morning activity.
I made good time and was pulling into a rest stop just South of the park by 11pm. I made some futile efforts to spot some of the meteors of the Perseids, which was happening that night, but the lights of the rest stop and the passing cars foiled me, which was disappointing. What was interesting was that I'd passed from coastal terrain into dessert terrain after twilight, so when I saw the sandy ground around the rest area, I was aware of the change, but since I couldn't really see the surrounding countryside, I had to wait until the morning to really see the dessert. What I had noticed was a sign I passed which read "Avoid engine overheating -- turn off AC next 10 miles."
When I awoke at 6:30am,
I was panting from the heat, even though I'd left the sun roof
open throughout the night. It wasn't really hot out (yet), it
was just heat trapped in the car. While I was filling up my water
can, these girls pictured to the right pulled up and told me they
were from Texas, and did I smoke/have any pot? What, am I wearing
a sign, or something? I guess there's no such thing as too early
for wake and bake, eh?
I
left the rest stop before 7am and hit Joshua Tree by 7:30, and
cruised pretty much straight through, stopping occasionally to
photograph some interesting specimens and scenes. I was already
loving this terrain -- it completely reminds me of the best parts
of Israel. The air is arid, and the nap of the earth is hilly
with small mountain ranges interspersed, covered with sandy rocks
(but not a fine layer of sand like the Sahara) and scrub brush
and cacti. Yucca trees abound. There are rattlesnakes and scorpions,
none of which I've seen yet, but I know they're there.
The Joshua Tree National Park is named after said tree, a specific kind of Yucca tree. It actually contains parts of both the higher Mojave Desert, and the low Colorado Desert. The Colorado Desert portion is hotter and has no Joshua trees, and the Mojave portion is cooler and has Joshua trees. That's about all I had time to learn, since I was just passing through.
Ah, excellent!!! Cam, the guy who works on Saabs at Williams Auto Service, has told me that he's going to work on my car, and not only that, but after a brief discussion, told me he knows from my reports that the problem is a faulty fuel pump. Well, it'll run me around $500 to fix (ow!), but I'm no longer dreading the next 3 days, and I'll be on the road later today.
The tow truck took over and hour and a half to arrive, but thanks to my AAA Plus membership (Benjy, that was all your doing -- thanks a million for that suggestion), I got a free tow to the Saab shop in Vegas, almost 80 miles away. I then was told that they wouldn't be able to work on the car until Monday.
That's when I got really depressed. Well, as depressed as I get these days. I mean, Vegas was only on my route because it was literally in the way of my path to Zion and Bryce canyons, and I had no desire to be there at all, and now I was being told that I'd have to spend the weekend there with no mobility! Suck!
I
asked Cam for some advice about where I could park the car and
sleep in it, and he told me I could sleep in it in front of the
shop. So that's where I spent the night. You can see my regal
sleeping quarters there to the left.
Since I was going stir crazy, after I choked down what I could of a can of Dinty Moore beef stew, I went for an hour long walk towards the bright lights of Vegas, stopping into this teeny (by Vegas standards) Hotel/Casino called the Showboat. I asked how much a room costed ($35 for one person), and strolled around the casino -- aisle after aisle of slot machines and people just playing the slots... I was becoming nauseated. A few tables for blackjack and poker, an entire floor of bingo (ooh, can I dye my hair blue and play hours and hours of bingo, with little good luck trinkets placed obsessively so on my bingo cards, please please please?), and a stage/nightclub area with a cheesy silk-shirt-wearing lounge singer working the crowd of 3 and telling them to sing along if they knew the words... "Sweet Caroline... oh, oh, oh..."
I fled past the strips of pawn shops back to my car. On the way I noticed something legitimately interesting -- the highway patrol police in Nevada drive Chevy Z28s! When I got back to my car I went straight to sleep -- 10:30. I was so stressed about the prospect of spending the next 3 days in Vegas that my stomach hurt.
In the
morning I woke up to the opening of the shop, around 7am, and
by 10am Cam was telling me that he was gonna work on my car! He
must have detected how miserable I was when I asked his advice
about parking, sleeping, and eating... anyhow, he worked on my
car and I worked on my journal when I wasn't watching him -- all
in all, it was a really quick operation, the majority of the time
was waiting for the part to get to the shop, and I was out of
there by noon. My outlook on life was improved beyond description,
and I told Cam what a favor he was doing me (a few times, not
that he didn't know that already), and what better way to repay
a favor than with the gift of alcohol? One of the other guys in
the shop gave me the requisite tip, so just as my car was getting
put back together I ran off and got Cam 24 of his favorite beer
-- Coors Light, in a bottle. Hey, what, am I going to criticize
his taste?
So I broke the hell out of town and headed North. All of a sudden I noticed that I was headed the wrong way -- not according to my initial plan, but I'd noticed the Hoover Dam and the Valley of Fire and Lake Mead, all right nearby. The Valley of Fire in particular had been recommended by Elita as an amazing place to go. So I quickly turned off of I-15 and headed West to the Valley of Fire State Park.
It was a
good decision -- within minutes I was wending my way down through
a massive valley carved out of flaming red sandstone. I stopped
at a rock formation called "The Beehives," a set of
sandstone boulders with bizarre weathering which make them look
like... yeah, beehives. To the right I am pictured standing in
front of said rock formation. It was at least 90 degrees out at
the time. At the beehives I ran into some people who took that
picture and I talked up my journal site a wee bit. While I was
gabbing with them, I saw a superbly detailed Cobra (the car) go
ripping down the windy road -- a man I was jealous of out on a
leisurely day trip through the Valley of Fire. Of course, that
only goes to show that you can always want more.
I drove on through the valley to arrive on the shores of Lake Mead, the largest artificial body of water on the Earth, I believe. The lake is the backed up flow of the river which powers the dynamos at the Hoover Dam. Before I exited the valley, I stopped by a rock formation called Elephant Rock. Kinda abstract, look for it in the image gallery.
Naturally I was inspired
to go swimming in the 75 degree waters of Lake Mead, and so I
did, at a place called Boulder Beach, pictured to the left. After
one of the most refreshing swims I've ever had in my life, I whipped
up mac and cheese under a shelter from the sun, and chowed down.
While I ate some travelers came along and admired my stove. Hee.
I hit the road and made tracks for the Hoover Dam. It was a pretty ride, and surprisingly little traffic. It was 3:00 when I set out, and about 4:10 when I got there.
Hm,
what to say about the Hoover Dam. It was there. It was huge. Although
I toyed with the notion of taking one of the tours, I decided
that getting to just outside of Zion National Park that night
early enough to hit the sack and be up by 5am was more important,
and I just walked around the exhibit area and checked out the
dam from the observation deck. For some reason I kept thinking
of Beavis and Butthead Do America. I gawked at the enormity
of the project and watched a film on the making of the dam, and
left.
I took a different route away from Lake Mead, one which lead me straight back to Las Vegas, where I got back on I-15 and headed straight to Zion. I arrived in the vicinity of Zion at around sunset time, and was on my way to the park when I saw the perfect spot to spend the night. It was an overly large, unmarked pullout on the right side of the road (as I was driving), and I parked the car there and wrote the prior section of the journal entry after dealing with the photos from the day.
I'd decided that the pullout was perfect for one reason -- it was quite (although not completely) free of light pollution, and I was resolved to make up for the previous night. I was richly rewarded with one of the most beautiful starscapes I've laid eyes on outside of the Quetico (I've talked about that, it's the Ontario portion of the Boundary Waters, that lake system...), and I spotted at least 10 massive meteors. I went to bed too late (midnight), but it was worth it. I woke up again at 4am spontaneously, and saw Orion rise. Then I caught one last hour of sleep before I got up.
I woke up at 5am on the Saturday the 14th to the sound of my cellphone's builtin alarm (who needs a travel alarm clock anymore?), stretched, and headed straight off to Zion. The sun wasn't even close to up, but I had no idea when it would be up, and I had 20 miles to go to get to the park, and I had then to find a spot where I could watch the sun rise over the canyon.
Well, when I got to the visitor center (there was no-one at the gate yet, too early), it was still only 5:30 and the sky was still a night sky. I read on a poster outside the center about a trail called Canyon Overlook Trail which sounded perfect, so I drove off towards it. Now, there are two main roads which head through the southern portion of the park, both fed by the road from the visitor center. The first heads North into the canyon, and is called the Zion Canyon scenic drive, and it follows the course of the Virgin river (which is carving Zion canyon out even as I write). The second heads up the eastern wall of the canyon on tight switchbacks and then through the canyon wall in a 1.2 mile tunnel. Just to the East of that tunnel is where the trailhead for the Canyon Overlook Trail. Of course, I drove the scenic road first by accident, although I could barely make out the walls of the canyon as looming dark masses. But by the time I turned around I thought I could see a little lightening of the sky.
By the
time I made it to the trailhead, the sky had brightened to dawning,
but the sun was not yet up. I hurried up the trail to the overlook,
and when I looked out over the southern end of Zion, I knew that
this harebrained scheme of getting 4 - 5 hours of sleep and getting
up while it was still nighttime was worth it. As you can see pictured
to the left, it was quite a view. I couldn't see the sun rise,
since it was obscured by another ridge to the East, but the dawning
light was warm and rosy, and the canyon walls of Zion are so rich
with different shades of red that watching the morning light slide
down them was like seeing a light show. Below is an example of
what I'm talking about.
I
spent at least 45 minutes watching the show and taking pictures
from time to time. I wished that I had a real SLR camera (that's
Single Lens Reflex for you Phillistines) to get the real
quality shots -- this digital camera is really great, but it has
it's limitations, and it will never achieve the fine detail that
a 35mm can get with, say, Nikon optics. I'll have to wait a few
years before a digicam can do that. Even then, as a hobbyist,
I think I'll need to get me an SLR one of these days for the super
high quality shots.
After the sunrise, I headed
all the way back to the West entrance to the park to exit to a
town and get me some coffee and write in this journal. I was foiled
in the latter half of my plan, since the battery in the laptop
was drained, though I'd thought I'd charge it. I met an interesting
guy named Keith, though, who was traveling with his wife, and
when I told him what I was up to, he got really excited and told
me that he'd done a similar tour of the states and National Parks
on a motorcycle when he was younger, and I told him that I'd wished
a thousand times that I could do this trip on a bike as well,
and he told me about one time when he was riding through Glacier
National Park when icy rain came pouring down, as an illustration
of the potential hazards of touring on a bike. He also expressed
interest in the site, since his son apparently kept a journal
of thier vacation in the newest Provincial Park in Canada, something
like Lake Obikeebe, or Wakee-something (anyone
out there know which one I'm talking about?), and was into
computers (of course he is, he was born in the past 15 years),
and so I gave him the address and told him to have his son contact
me if he wanted to discuss high-tech journalism.
I have mentioned this before in passing, but the more people I meet, the more I realize that what I'm doing here is pretty cutting-edge. I'm not the only one doing something like this at all, but it is pretty amazing that one guy can pretty easily, and on a pretty low budget, maintain a relatively regularly updated website. Keith said that he wanted to check out my site because it would put him in mind of his own travels, and he could then share in someone else's travels too. Awesome.
After
a little breakfast of leftover mac and cheese, I headed back into
Zion to do the scenic drive in daylight, and to do a hike. The
one I chose turned out to be a seriously badass hike -- 1488 feet
of ascent in 2.5 miles. It was called "Angels Landing,"
probably because only madmen and things with wings should be up
there. First came a grueling but paved 15 minutes of switchback
trail (oh, and bear in mind that the guide book said it was a
4 hour round trip, and I did it in 3, with a 45 minute stop at
the summit) up the Western wall of the canyon, followed by 10
minutes of hike up and West, deep into one of the canyon's crevices,
followed by another series of switchbacks up the primary rock
that made up Angels Landing. After the last series of switchbacks
came the real climb -- serious clambering, sometimes using all
four limbs, up narrow crevices and over rocks where the ledge
which led out to the landing was so narrow that 10 feet in either
direction was a 1500 foot plummet. Pictured above is a great perspective
-- at the bottom of the photo is my shorts and the tip of my boot
standing on the edge of a rock, and immediately above that rock
is the Virgin River 1500 feet below. You can make out teeny cars
in the parking lot above the river.
The
final ascent was so tough that the parks service installed chains
for people to hang onto as they climbed, to assist them climbing
and to prevent them from falling to thier deaths in case of a
slip. To the left you can see what I'm talking about. In the foreground
you can see the chains and in the background is Angels Landing.
Nice incline, eh? It's even more fun on your way down, when you
can leap from rock to rock.
The overlook, when I was done climbing, was... inspirational.
I can't think of a better way to describe it. Well, just look.
Below is a picture of me in front of one of the views.
I hung
around on the landing for about 45 minutes, contemplating the
view and the vastness of the body of sediments the Virgin River
must have carried down to the Colorado River in creating the Zion
Canyon. Other hikers came and went. I knew I'd be passing them
on the way down. ;-)
As I headed down again, I ran into the Wilsons, an elderly Mother and Father, and a son and his wife in thier 30s, who'd left thier kids in with friends for a bit. I have already forgotten thier names, as I regrettably often do, so I think of them as Mom, Dad, Son, and Wife Wilson. At first I just had been talking with Mom Wilson, since she'd asked me how I liked the view from Angels Landing. She was sitting on a rock on a level portion of the trail just before the chained section began. She had apparently worked for NPS for 4 years when she was in college, and knew Zion quite well. She recommended other hikes, and of course I told her I was going to try and catch Bryce canyon by sunset. Then Wife and Son Wilson showed up, and we fell to talking some more, and I mentioned how humbling it was to be doing this hike in twice as much time as it would have taken me when I was in Israel, but that I was getting over a long period of smoking, and they asked me how I had quit, and since they were ready to head down, I told them I'd tell them as we descended. We collected Dad Wilson, who'd been napping, and started off, and I told them my life's story as I we headed down. When I got to the part about mellowing out from a righteous bastard of an atheist to a more sensible agnostic in Israel, Mom Wilson mentioned how they were Mormons. We talked a wee bit of Theology, but they were very considerate and did not preach at me at all. We eventually reached the bottom of the hike and the Wilsons offered me hospitality in Salt Lake City, and wished me well when I demurred.
I washed off from the pump in the parking lot by the trailhead, shampooed my hair, and headed out for Bryce. It was 4:00pm.
As I left the vicinity of Zion, I noticed the terrain begin to change immediately. Check out a few of the Utah pix in the image gallery for some examples of the varied terrain.
I arrived at Bryce
at 5:30, which was about three hours ahead of sunset, but then
I had to go shopping for provisions, and I checked out the visitor
center, and so it was 7:30 when I got to Sunset Point, which looks
out over the main Bryce amphitheater. There I set up my stew and
finished the previous day's journal entry while I waited for it
to be ready, and watched the sun set over the hoodoos. Now that's
what I call a perfect sunrise to sunset day. When it got dark
I checked out the stars for a bit, but I was too wiped out from
being up at 5 and only sleeping 4 hours to stay out, and so I
left Bryce and drove 40 minutes south of the park to a rest stop
just north of Glendale, where I crashed.
The following morning I recooked the leftover stew and dealt with the images from yesterday while I ate. As I was wrapping up, the grounds keeper, who'd been working the whole morning, came by and commented "you've got a pretty big office here!" to which I had to reply "yeah, and it's got a great view, too." He asked me if I was working, and so I started to tell him what I was doing. He recommended that I visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon as opposed to the South Rim, which is all populated and commercialized. Good tip.
I cleaned up and drove till I got to Orderville (which was curiously haphazard) for coffee, where I heard a man and a sheriff discussing how ridiculously expensive cigarettes were getting, and one of them commented that "you could probably get a marijuana cigarette for cheaper these days..." Snort. A "marijuana cigarette," huh? I wonder if he was concerned that his kids not get "social diseases." ROTFL!
Well, that's it for now. I'm about an hour off from the Grand Canyon and getting good cellular signal, so I'm gonna upload now.
